


Reinhabit

by celestial_hieroglyphs



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, hardwon ! surefoot ! is ! a ! trans ! narrative !
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_hieroglyphs/pseuds/celestial_hieroglyphs
Summary: Post-Reincarnation, Hardwon reconnects his body and his mind outside Gladeholm(more accurately, a plotless exploration of hardwon post reincarnation and his familiarity with a disconnection to his body! ft. hitchhikers thumb, zero forethought, and crick youngin’s!)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Reinhabit

Hardwon’s first body didn’t fit from the start- neither did the name he grew up with. First off, despite dwarves’ lack of a strict gender binary, it was irrefutably a girl’s name. They’d figured a human should ascribe more to their people’s customs. Secondly, he was too bad ass too be named anything _but_ Hardwon Surefoot.

( _Or, as he would discover decades later, Elias Stormborn. This was also suitably bad ass, and he added it to his list of aliases and names_.)

But that’s besides the point: Even when matters of arcane and science made his body fit far better, he lost attachment to it often. In Irondeep, he’d crash to the floor after a not insignificant amount of sliding and find gashes that should’ve killed him. Then outside the mountain, on varieties of adventures with what could rightfully be called his family, he’d have similarly deep and agonizing wounds.

Gazing down at them, at his own flesh and, on occasion, the things that lie beneath, he was sort of forced to distance himself from it. The scars reminded him too, constant and irremovable keepsakes of the times he stood before death’s door just to step back off the porch. The hits he’d taken, the open arms of people he knew dead, the lingering aches and the patches of scarred flesh were an alienating sort of thing.

Then, of course, there was the more disturbing incident where he died and came back. He lost half of his notable features, became monstrous. He, for a while, entirely lost agency over himself- watched his body hurt his friends, woke up different, walked with dark urges and slept with sinister hunger, lost sensations and gained new pains.

To say the least, there was a certain familiarity to the sensation of an alien body.

“You sure you’re good, Hardwon?” Moonshine asked, with shit to do and still half turned with concern sparking in her green eyes. The thoughts turning in his head tumbled to a stop. The instinct to wave her off, build those walls right back up, to not be such a burden- fuck.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry bout me.” Hardwon gave her and Beverly a wonky thumbs up; Different thumb, same utter inability to do it right.

“Ah- I- alright, well… Crickateers, let’s g-”

“WOAH!” Suddenly a youngin’ gasped and ran over, stumbling over their legs and such before climbing him like a damn tree. Moonshine threw her head back with laughter and Bev abandoned his rallying cry for a snicker.

“Woah there!” He exclaimed. This body was a little weaker and he planted his feet.

“Looks like you’ve got yer hands full, Hardwon. See ya!”

“S-See you guys, a- get off?” He said, going to remove the youngin’ hanging from his arm like a sloth on a tree branch.

“No, no, do it again!”

“… What?”

“Th-The thumb thing!” Hardwon gave a tiny laugh; if Moonshine’s thumbs up’s were anything to go by, it was an alien gesture to the Crick. He did a proper thumbs up, crooked but no worse than it was in his born-body. “No, no, like- like you had it- Ow!” They exclaimed as they pulled the top part of their thumb way farther back than it probably should.

“Hey, hey, quit it!” He put on his gruff voice before dropping it, along with the youngin’. He moved the top of his thumb back easily and the kid was right back on him despite protests and grabbing motions. “Yeah, that! Whassat!?”

“A thumb?” He sighed, grabbing his bea- his stubble.

“Naw, naw. Y'all! Come look at this guy’s finger.” Maybe he’d turn over a new leaf and stop swearing in front of kids.

“Oh,” He sighed as a mob of children stormed him, “fuck.”

“Can you show me how?!” Immediately.

“Oh yeah, I can do that!” Pop.

“WHAT!?” A chorus.

“I can do that too, look!” A more than likely bad crunch.

“OKAY! LET’S STOP NOW, right guys? Hahah!” Hardwon boomed out nervously, holding out both hands in hope of preventing any further incidents.

“Hitchhiker’s thumb!”

A hush fell over the kids, if you could call it that. The Crick was never silent- one of the many things Hardwon loved about it. “...W'sat!?”

“It’s when your thumb goes, like, all the way back. Like his, like mi-”

“No!”

“No, no! I promise, look, it just does that!” There was a popping sound and this new kid’s thumb curled back.

“I WANNA DO THAT!”

“OKAY! Look, if you have to use your other hand, you can’t do it. Ju- Don’t hurt yourselves?!” The dwarfens weren’t half this self destructive.

There were a few pops here and there, one more crunch. “How do you do it!?” One exasperated youngin’ with blonde hair sticking up everywhere it ought not to sighed.

“I- I don’t know, I’ve been able to do it since forever- uh. Huh.” He muttered.

He carried some things over into this body. He knew what it took, he wasn’t ungrateful for a second, but being born into a whole new body was different than waking up someone different.

It was different than waking up everyday to beat another record, different than finding out your life was so much more interesting than you thought, different than waking up with inhuman blood lust. This was a second- or third, wasn’t quite sure- chance. This body was wholly different but he’d seen it before he entered, a shell a little farther from his visage. This body- his body- was truly his own. Even if it hadn’t always been, he lived in it, he’d changed it and made it his own. He hadn’t even realized, hadn’t let himself recognize-

“What, ‘huh?’” The first youngin’ said, still hanging upside down from his arm.

Hardwon snapped out of it and gave them a toothy smile, bringing his arm up to his face for maximum mock-intimidation. “Nothin’, what are you worrying about it for?” He gave the kid a quick shake that only resulted in bouncing laughter and dirty nails digging into his arm that didn’t quite hurt enough to make him put the kid down.

“Me next! Me next!”

He sighed. “Dammit.”


End file.
